Sunny all day, for the first time since around 11 December I think. I particularly remember the latter as did a shoot for Countryfile magazine up on Wanstead Flats and in my garden and it had been raining for weeks beforehand. In both cases the solar power felt strong.
Then however, we were temporarily out of lockdown and the shoot, sandwiched in between two school runs, felt almost normal – as in you could manage the timings of your own day. Today, the impetus to get out and stay out, to make the most of our one free slot of allowed exercise, felt more urgent by the hour. Sunrise or sunset? A much-needed run alone or a longer play with the kids?
We are lucky to have a garden but when the boys’ sap is rising, which definitely happens on sunny days, its hard they are literally climbing the walls. They want to run free but they also want your full attention. In the end, homeschool and non-stop screens for the whole day just wasn’t sustainable and we sacked it for for some extended running around.
I tried to do my tax but that wasn’t sustainable either so I tidied up my studio while watching them go crazy and then forced myself into a dress and earrings to go to the Co-op. Get your kicks where you can. It did actually feel great.
The trip lasted a little longer than it takes to get groceries for ourselves and my neighbour Laura who is isolating with Covid due to my sun-seeking route. Was reminded of Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project at Tate Modern in 2003, where a grandiose effigy of the sun made of hundreds of mono-frequency sodium yellow lamps dominated the great industrial expanse of the Turbine Hall.
The fourth installation in the then-relatively new space opened just a few weeks before my 30th birthday, a time when it felt like anything was possible – a time of finally knowing what I wanted to do (write, design; make magazines and books), new horizons and a lot of having fun.
I remember lying down on the floor of the installation, alongside hundreds of equally mesmerised visitors and just bathing in the glow, a magical mirage of light, mist and mirrors. I felt connected not just to the sun but to my fellow humans. It felt sublime.
Indeed the work was very much an investigation of the sublime in nature, art and language. Looking up some of the text that was proffered alongside the work – to discover whether the sublime remains a legitimate and potent concept in the contemporary world.
Does the sublime exist today? Can it carve out a space in the claustrophobia of a pandemic or are we hoping for a post-pandemic version of it? Do we all experience a sliver of it when we go and stand in the sun, especially when it may be the large burst of solar energy we expect to get for a while? Or is a sliver of the sublime a paradox?
I’ve definitely experienced sublime in a few different ways but right now I feel like I’m identifying more with the verb than the noun. Less spiritual or intellectual inspired awe, more passing from solid to vapour to solid again!
Obviously time for sublimation of a different kind, in the form of a very large glass of wine.